Barclays chief resigns: Is this the end of the ‘I-can-work-harder-than-anyone’ macho culture in banking?

Maybe, just maybe, things really are about to change in banking. The
resignation of the Barclays chief due to stress could finally be the
sea-change needed to unravel the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’-ness of working 100
hours a week, says Josephine Fairley. And that's got to be a good
thing for women bankers

Nobody goes into banking for an easy life, do they? Maybe with the dream that at the end of a high-pressure career, that’s exactly what they’ll get: the whole yacht-in-the-Caribbean, languid-weekend-lunches-at-The-Fat-Duck, indulging-my-passion-for-modern-art fantasy which may be part of what powers bankers through extraordinarily unforgiving hours, night after night client dinners, almost constant jet-lag (in the case of a few fund managers I know), and rarely seeing friends or their own family.

So I imagine the news thatSir Hector Sants has had to resignfrom Barclays a month after taking sick leave for stress(the cumulative effect, so rumours have it, of five years running the FSA followed by his time at the bank) will go down in one of two ways, within financial circles. Among the more macho, ‘I-can-work-harder-than-anyone’, chest-thumping contingent, this might be viewed with a distinct lack of sympathy. But what I’m hoping, by contrast, is that it could mark the start of a sea-change in City working practices. (And not just because of the risk of lawsuits from employees who can prove that their stress was brought about by excessive working demands – though of course there’s no suggestion Sir Hector will be bringing one of those …)

I have quite a few friends in the City and finance; although even more who’ve decided to throw in the towel and do something less pressured, as it happens. The younger recruits, in particular, talk about the long hours and the post-work demands to wine and dine clients several nights a week, which seems to be ‘expected’ once you achieve a certain status and accordingly comes with a shiny company credit card to be flexed high up the Shard, the Heron building or at any of the other flash City watering holes du jour.

I’ve long wondered whether those long hours and entertainment-athons really do have to go with the territory. I’ve a hunch, too, that they’re at least part of the reason why there are fewer senior women in City roles: not because they can’t get the jobs – although that’s a different issue – but because women are are actually too sensible to want to be part of a culture that in some cases, as I’ve seen, means mostly seeing your family on some expensive, compensatory family holidays.

Interestingly, Barclays – the bank Sir Hector’s resigned from – seems also to be leading the way in terms of diversity at executive level. And from what I hear first-hand, there’s far less of the ‘macho’ in that particular bank’s culture. Which may also be why Sir Hector felt able to admit the reason for his resignation, rather than hiding behind a euphemistic cloak of ‘poor health’.

But maybe, just maybe, things really are about to change. First, Sir Hector’s public admission that he’s been seriously affected by stress and exhaustion could just pave the way for admitting that you can’t cope becoming somewhat less of a taboo – which surely can only be a good thing: the first step to creating a culture in which someone dares to point out the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’-ness of the 100-hour City working week.

But even more significant, perhaps, is Goldman Sachs’s declaration that from now on, they don’t want their junior employees working beyond 9pm on Friday, or before 9am on Sunday, in order to enjoy that quaint concept: A Day Off. (Note, not two days, i.e. a weekend) And ‘work shouldn’t shift from office to home’, insists the bank, who’ve set up an entire task force to look at working practices, declaring that they want analysts to think of their working careers at the bank as ‘a marathon, not a sprint’. Workers are also ‘strongly encouraged’ to take three weeks holiday a year – remember, in the US, where the bank is headquartered, two weeks is normal. Though we’ll know we’ve really got somewhere when employees are banned till 9am Monday, not Sunday.

I find it all encouraging, though. Because at the end of the day (and what is currently an unbelievably long day) anything which allows bankers to Get A Life is bound to impact positively on women. It therefore opens up banking to more women as a potential career that can be integrated with family life, and consequently for a less ‘macho’ culture generally. Does even the highest-flying banker (of either sex) really, really need to work late every night, dine late and tiptoe home at 1am before setting the alarm for 5am to be back in the office an hour later …? I’d say not. I’d say it’s a male way of thinking, of doing business – and I’d say it’s got to change.

We might just find that Sir Hector Sants has done women in finance a huge favour, then. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, I really hope he enjoys staring at some well-deserved sunsets, during his recovery to good health.